In the opening fight of the World Boxing Super Series, cruiserweights Oleksandr Usyk and Marco Huck faced one another in the Max Schmeling Halle in Berlin. Usyk became WBO champion in only his tenth fight and defended the belt for the third time against its former holder, who he had selected to fight as part of the competition’s set up. Huck looked slow and flat footed, and was easy to predict in his attacks, which as Usyk began to break him down became more and more desperate. Eventually the referee had seen enough in round ten, with Huck massively behind on the cards and being knocked around the ring by the far superior Usyk.

It was a dominant display from the Ukrainian, who is favourite to win the cruiserweight section of the tournament. We previewed the whole cruiserweight tournament (links below) and Steve Fearon, our stats guy who wrote the preview was pretty much bang on the money for fight number one, saying, “Usyk will dominate this fight, with crisper work, and win a clear UD, but I really wouldn’t be surprised to see him get the stoppage”. If you haven’t read them yet, give them a go, Steve’s one for one!

Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez lost his first fight, and his unbeaten record, to Sriskavet Rungvisai in March, and opted to go straight in again with his conqueror on Saturday September 9th. Topping a great bill in California, the two men competed again for the WBC super flyweight title Rungvisai won by majority decision in that first encounter. Gonzalez is a three weight world champion, having moved up from minimumweight and there was popular opinion that the supremely talented boxer would find a way to outsmart Rungvisai second time around. However the men went at it from the first bell, and Chocolatito’s lack of strength at the weight showed, he was dropped twice heavily in the fourth, the second time being final.

The question now is what will Gonzalez do next? He’s dropped out of the lb for lb lists, and at 30 has time to rebuild, but this was a crushing defeat.

Benavidez Crowned Youngest World Champion

David Benavidez won the WBC super middleweight crown in Las Vegas with a split decision win over Ronald Gavril. It makes the twenty year old the youngest super middleweight world champion ever, and the youngest current world champion in any weight. Benavidez has looked spectacular getting up to the title shot, all accounts are that he looked out of sorts on Friday (September 8th) even being put down in the final round.

With the World Boxing Super Series tying up eight potential opponents at the top of the division, and only the losers from that series being made available as it goes on, it will be interesting to see what Benavidez’s next move is with regards an opponent.

Kovalev To Fight Shabranskyy

After two defeats in a row to Andre Ward, a somewhat bitter Sergey Kovalev looks to rebuild against 19-1 (16) Vyacheslav Shabranskyy of the Ukraine, who is based in Los Angeles. Shabranskyy’s opponents have been a little uninspiring and his one loss is to Sullivan Barrera by knockout in December last year. There is no date set yet for the contest, but it can be viewed as little other than a decent level rebuilding match for Kovalev.

Dupre Gets Commonwealth Title Shot

Popular Hellraiser unbeaten cruiserweight Robin Dupre, 12-0 (1), will fight Luke Watkins, 11-0 (7) live on Channel 5 on October 7th for the Commonwealth Cruiserweight title. The Cyclone Promotions event features Andrew Selby in the main event and another Hellraiser, Asinia Byfield, looking to defend his Southern Area title for a third time against Max Wicks.

It’s a huge opportunity for Robin and all of us at Hellraiser are very excited to see him take home the belt live on national television. Team Dupre! #AndTheNew